Wednesday, August 31, 2016

I had the pleasure of reading this fantastic story, and I had the chance to pick Adam's brain about it. Here is the summary and links if you're interested in reading it. It's out tomorrow!

Samurai Vs. Robots. Progress. Murder. Choice. In 1901, the Meiji
Restoration has abolished the old ways and ushered in a cybernetic
revolution. Androids integrate into society at all levels, following
their programming for the betterment of every citizen, as servants,
bodyguards, and bureaucrats. Jinzou are the future. Japan is at the
threshold of a new tomorrow! As a ronin steeped in the old ways, Itaru
wants nothing more to do with the artificial creations posing as human.
But when a jinzou is suspected of murder, he's pulled into a mystery
that could tear the nation apart. Malfunction or free will? When is a
machine more than just a machine?

Because it's awesome! Why not? (I joke, but honestly most of my stories start with "How awesome would this be?!").

I
think my biggest inspiration for blending those two particular things
came from one of my favorite webcomics Penny Arcade. There's a series
they do sometimes called Automata, in which they've created a noir
Prohibition Era world where androids are restricted instead of alcohol. I
took that idea and combined it with my love of Japanese history --
because seriously, I can't think of a single era in Japan's history that
I
wouldn't love to write a story in (as long as I could add robots or
mutant powers or something, of course). Izanami's Choice is what came out of it.

Itaru is an interesting fella with serious grudges against droids, or jinzou—how did you build him as your main character?

I
don't know how conscious this process was, but in hindsight it went
like this. I had a nation in love with droids, so what better
protagonist than someone who hates them?

Making him
hate them wasn't that hard. The (actual historical) Meiji Restoration of
the 19th century left a lot of disenfranchised samurai in its wake.
Most samurai moved on, of course -- many of them taking on roles in the
new government -- but what of those who didn't? If the last samurai
rebellion had been put down by a droid army (instead of conscripted
peasants with Western firearms), then some former samurai would
naturally blame the influx of droids on their troubles. That's where
Itaru came from.

Then, to make it personal, suppose
his son was recently killed due to a droid malfunction. That event tears
Itaru apart and makes it so he can't even look at a droid without
remembering his loss.

Finally, because I'm a monster, I
put Itaru in a situation where he had to work alongside a droid in
order to get his life back. The story kind of wrote itself after that
(not really, but you know).

How did you go about adapting an advanced technology like A.I. and Robotics into a historical setting?

Oo, that was the fun part! Well, fun for me. I'm pretty sure I'm about to bore 80% of your readers.

It emerged out of two ideas. The first came from the classic steampunk novel The Difference Engine:
what if Charles Babbage had actually completed his difference engine
(basically a mechanical calculator) in the early 19th century? I took
that further. What if he had gone on to create more advanced computing
machines as well, resulting in early computers 100 years before we
actually got them?

The second idea was something I
learned studying artificial intelligence in college: the idea of
evolutionary programming. To oversimplify it, say there's a problem
you're trying to solve -- something that's pretty hard for computers to
pull off, like automatic facial recognition. Evolutionary programming
would mean creating a bunch of different facial recognition algorithms
and competing them against each other. The programs with the best
results would then be tweaked and revised a hundred ways, and that
second generation would compete against each other again. Repeat this a
hundred times until you have a pretty dang good facial recognition
program (in theory).

The hard part (well, one hard
part) is how to evaluate when a program is "good." But imagine if there
were a machine intelligence capable of evaluating -- and then revising
-- its own programs and designs. Being a machine, it could then iterate
over thousands of designs in the time it would take a human to iterate
once.

And if that machine started iterating on itself... that's a robotic singularity -- an artificial intelligence growing exponentially while humans are out on their lunch break.

I
found your theme of "Fear Being Dangerous" particularly poignant—I'd
love to know more of what you wanted to explore, theme-wise, in this
story.

It's funny, because I didn't intend
for that theme to be poignant when I wrote it. It just came naturally
out of the story. I had written the first draft months before the news
was plastered with things like Syrian refugees or banning entire
religions from the US.

Several weeks later, I was rereading Izanami's Choice
for its first revision, shortly after Donald Trump proposed evicting
all Muslims because they might be terrorists. There was one particular
line near the end of the novella about "fear of danger being more
dangerous than the threat itself" -- a line I had completely forgotten I
had written -- and when I read it in light of current events, I
thought, "Holy crap. I didn't mean to write a political story!"

But
I guess that theme is always poignant to some extent. Fear is a
powerful motivator, but it doesn't always make the wisest decisions. I
like to think about why the bad guy does what he does. Real people don't
think of themselves as the villain, and the most interesting
antagonists to me are the ones who genuinely might be right. This world is pretty messed up... What if drastic measures are the only way to fix it?

That idea makes it into a lot of my stories, because there's a part of me that thinks maybe that is
the only way to fix it. But then there's another, more insistent part
of me that clings to hope and good. That internal struggle is pretty
terrible for my sanity, but it makes for good fiction.

Finally, do we ever get more set in this world? The world-building was so fantastic I don't want to leave just yet!

I
certainly hope so! To be honest, it may depend on how well this story
does. So hey! If you like the idea of sentient robots in industrial-era
Japan then buy my book!

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

The final book in the I'm A Ninja series!
Yes, really. It's over.
I'm not writing another one. Ever.

It's officially official! Tosh and Amy's story is completely written, and now you can read it all. If you want. Not mandatory reading or anything.

It feels good to have finished. The writing was hard and took every last bit of resolve I had in me, but looking back at what I have done gives me a sense of accomplishment.

I know the series isn't super well read (I see the sale numbers you can't tell me it is). I know it'll never be some bestseller. But Tosh's story was an important one for me to see through for myself, and I'm happy there are some other people out there who have enjoyed it thus far. Thanks for your eyes on my words—truly it means a lot to me.

And if you're looking for the Complete Series, I've made an ebook bundle that'll get you a good deal on ALL the books in one easy reading format:AmazonBarnes & NobleKoboiBooks

Here's to new adventures and new stories! Yes, despite all my melancholy, despite all the struggles, I'm still writing and I still have a smidgen of hope that I'll be able to share those stories with you someday. I just need to run into a heaping of luck.

But in the mean time, I have left you with NINE novels to read. I think that's not so bad. It was more than I ever could have dreamed as a young teen writer who thought just ONE novel would be epic.

I wish I could write Teen Natalie a note: "You did it. Wasn't easy, but you did it."

Natalie Whipple

I am an author and card-carrying nerd. My favorite areas of the nerd realm include anime, Korean dramas, good cheese, and playing mmorpgs with my family. I take pride in writing the weirdest books I can think of, and my novels TRANSPARENT and BLINDSIDED, HOUSE OF IVY & SORROW, and RELAX, I'M A NINJA are just some of my wacky ideas.